On Saturday, October 5, my family and I went to check out Paseo in the park in Taos, NM. Paseo has been going on for 11 years but I have only been checking it out for the last 4 years. This year, instead of being at night and all over downtown Taos, Paseo was centralized in the park during the day (except for the silent disco on Saturday night) and featured the Luminarium, food trucks, some activities in tents, and other cool art displays. The Luminarium was a big inflatable tent with cool pockets and rooms of light. It was a neat installation that reminded me of Meow Wolf. It was kind of hot and stuffy in the Luminarium, but I couldn’t help thinking of all the music, performance art, or other ways this installation could be used.
On Sunday, October 6 was my big day at Paseo. First I did some storytelling under a tent from noon until 1 PM. I told stories about my experiences on the acequias and some characters I have met along the way. It was fun to relate my experiences cleaning acequias, stories of how they were established, and accounts of the humble heroes who kept the acequias going over generations. I took this opportunity to contextualize and advertise my ‘Acequia Apocalypse’ installation that was to be shown later in the afternoon.
The main event for me at Paseo was the presentation of the 4th edition of my ‘Acequia Apocalypse’ multi-media installation. In the last years’ presentations I had multiple screens for the installation but this year I was challenged to consolidate the media and the message to one screen so it could be shown on the big screen of the Taos Community Auditorium. The images above are screen shots taken at 3 different times during the 15-minute installation. I appreciated this evolution as it will give me more opportunities to show this installation beyond the Paseo event. For example, I think the New Mexico Acequia Association is interested in showing ‘Acequia Apocalypse’ at the 25th annual Congreso de las Acequias in Las Vegas, NM on November 15 and 16 (see lasacequias.org for more info). I am also hoping to show this film at the Peñasco Theater and other venues.
In ‘Acequia Apocalypse,’ I display images, video, and edited music and oral history samples in a way that shows the history and culture of acequias in northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado with regard to the challenges we have faced and are facing to maintain acequias historically, presently, and into the future. I tried to juxtapose images with the video and audio to create contrasts and create a chronology of the practices and historical events in the region as it relates to the continuation of acequia culture at this time in history.
Another highlight of Paseo for me was that I was able to showcase some students’ poetry through a youth poetry reading. In another aspect of my life, I now serve as the 4th Taos Poet Laureate and am conducting a project to get youth to write poetry about ‘Querencia’ or their sense of home and homeland. I am putting together a zine with over 40 youth poems. I had three students show up for the poetry event on Sunday. Z (center) and Lee (right) read their poems along with Abrianna (not pictured). When they were done with their poems, they read other poems that were written by their peers. We had poems from Anansi, UNM-Taos, Taos Academy, and TISA that will be featured in the 2024 edition of the zine. Check out some excerpts of the student poems below. It is possible and likely that I will continue to bring a youth poetry element into Paseo for 2025, the second and last year of my Poet Laureate term.
“…Before I lose my last cry inside
Laugh my pain away
When my love is all I gave
Now we move on to a different day
Stay away from my mistakes
I lost more than you can say…”
-Z
“…Home is when I’m in your arms
feeling secure and safe.
Being in your presence makes me feel joyful and confident
We don’t even have to be doing anything
Just being with you makes me feel at home…”
-Lee
Rich Schrader
Profound reflections Miguel. I look forward to seeing Acequia Apocalypse the first chance I get!